


Like Keeper's Flames

by simplesetgo



Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: Angst, F/F, Infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-17
Updated: 2011-10-17
Packaged: 2017-10-24 17:44:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/266173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplesetgo/pseuds/simplesetgo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was long ago that Kahlan actually believed each night would be the last one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Keeper's Flames

She does not wander there after she leaves her husband asleep in their bed. Her legs carry her, and she tells herself there’s a difference. She lets her mind wander in turn as she strides through flame-lit corridors of stone, and soon, as always, gives up on all thoughts but those that summon warmth between her thighs.

The linen room is large, and set at the corner of the southwest tower—bright moonlight slants in the many oversized windows, and a light breeze drifts through. It’s crossed from wall to wall with dozens of strong clotheslines, on which hang myriad sheets and blankets and towels. Kahlan slowly works her way through the billowing, fresh-smelling maze of white, and wonders if she’ll be waiting for her.

She isn’t. Sighing, Kahlan approaches the wide sill of a window and sets her forearms on the stone, leaning forward to gaze out into the night. The city wall runs straight out beneath her: to her left, wilderness dark and vast; to her right, silent buildings and their cold, ghostly shadows.

She has to wait but a moment before the room’s single door creaks open, and then shut. Kahlan closes her eyes, listening as the soft footsteps near. If it’s not who she’s expecting, she need only claim she sought a quiet and picturesque spot in which to think—and there is much that bears such dedicated thought. She is a Queen now, and no less a Mother Confessor. It’s a wonder she has time for such ventures as these at all.

Kahlan wonders at the sight she might make to her visitor: body bent forward, hair undone, spilling down her back untamed. A simple white nightshift, laced with gold as it may be, thin enough to leave little to the imagination regarding the curve of her hips and her backside.

The creak of leather reaches her ears. Kahlan’s heart lifts, her pulse quickens, and a smile curls her lips. “I missed you,” she says quietly, then wonders if the woman behind her heard the words spoken into the dead of night.

“It was two weeks,” a familiar voice replies, and then strong hands seize her hips and Kahlan’s breath catches. She straightens her body, pressing her back to soft breasts wrapped in leather, and bare hands travel up her sides—taking her shift with them, bunching it up.

“Cara,” Kahlan murmurs as cool air hits her thighs, her belly. “One would think you missed me too, the way you waste no time.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Cara says. A hand sweeps Kahlan’s hair from her neck. Soft lips press to the skin revealed, and Cara’s breath is warm there. “I missed only the sounds of ecstasy I so easily coax from you, nothing more.”

“Easily? Maybe I’ll withhold them,” Kahlan teases, swaying her hips against Cara. “Make you work for my moans and gasps.”

The shift falls back to her knees, and Cara’s hands cup her breasts over the thin cloth, pulling it tight across her chest. The blonde sets her chin to Kahlan’s shoulder, looking down at her full hands. “Oh, look at this,” she says softly. “Surely the breeze isn’t so very cold, Kahlan.”

Kahlan gazes down to see what she already feels: hard nipples visibly erect and straining against fabric. Cara’s thumbs stroke them and tease them and Kahlan bites her lip. “Cara,” she whispers, leaning her head back to the Mord-Sith’s own shoulder. “A welcoming gift waits at my thighs, courtesy of your footsteps into this very room.”

A noise of hunger leaves Cara’s throat, low and rough, and her hand dips slowly over Kahlan’s belly. She trails two fingers up the inside of first one thigh and then the other and Spirits, the way Cara _touches_ her…it’s all Kahlan can do not to writhe eagerly in Cara’s arms and moan like a whore in expectation.

Cara’s fingers press to her sex through the shift, and Kahlan knows its stained there with wetness now; doesn’t care, because she’s so hot that Cara’s hand feels cool. She rubs against the fabric and Kahlan grits her teeth at the pleasure blooming fast and fierce. Her own hands grip the rough stone of the sill as her hips push against Cara’s fingers. Cara doesn’t speak, now; her hand’s under the shift, fingers stroking through Kahlan’s wet flesh. She turns her head and sucks a kiss from Kahlan’s throat—careful not to leave a mark—and takes her, pushing and thrusting. “Cara,” Kahlan moans. “Oh, Cara.” Her eyes slip shut as her mouth falls open, and her muscles are only liquid in the face of such pleasure. Cara’s strong arm, leather-clad up to the wrist, wraps around her chest, half to support her and half to pull pleasure from Kahlan’s breast and the tight bud at its peak. She feels Cara’s breath hot at her ear, then soft lips close around the lobe and the skin on Kahlan’s side _tingles_ at the feel of her tongue.

Cara moves her and pushes her and then her front is pressed bodily against the rough wall of stone, where she takes Kahlan harder, trapping her between pleasure and permanence. It’s cool rock against her cheek, her breasts and shoulders, and she shifts a bit just to feel the burning drag at her nipples. Kahlan relishes the familiar build of release, the way Cara’s body feels against her (she can feel the buckles of her armor digging into her back through the shift), the way Cara’s fingers are curling as they dip inside her and it’s like she’s pulling fear and guilt and doubt and everything bad from Kahlan with every thrust, leaving her feeling pure and focused and so very much _herself_ , so very alive, when she breaks in Cara’s arms, her magic flooding the air and Cara’s soul.

Her climax is quick and strong and far too fast, and Kahlan’s heart flutters in her chest as pleasure releases its paralyzing hold on her. “Again,” she gasps, “oh Cara, again. Spirits, I missed you.”

“I live to serve,” Cara whispers, the meaning of her tone a mystery, as she lifts shining fingers from Kahlan’s legs.

At Cara’s urging Kahlan shuffles to the window and bends over, crossing her arms on the sill and resting her forehead on them. The shift hangs loosely from her, and the cool air wafting across her flushed chest is a blessing. She dips her spine to offer her backside, and Cara sighs out behind her, a shaky thing, as she bunches Kahlan’s clothing at the small of her back. Cara slaps at her dripping sex, an undeniably wet sound, and Kahlan’s body jerks, her breasts swinging. Cara rubs there with her other hand and then she’s wetting the cheeks of Kahlan’s backside, taking her time and massaging her own arousal into them. Kahlan smiles to herself; Cara was always ravenous for her fresh from a bath or wet with sweat. Something about glistening skin.

“You’re so beautiful,” Cara whispers, and she sounds helpless, light fingers trailing from her shoulder down her back. “I thought of nothing else.”

In wonder at the admission, the smile falls from Kahlan’s lips, but she can’t think on it further. Gazing down, she sees their shadows in moonlight between her legs, can see the crook in Cara’s arm as she takes Kahlan’s hip and brings her fingers back home. Kahlan’s eyes lose focus and every thrust coaxes a moan from her, as quiet as she can make them. She’s sensitive, her flesh hungry for Cara, always hungry for Cara, and even more so given her absence. Her fingers have lost none of their skill, and with the way they fill her and fuck her, deeper in this position, Kahlan’s second release approaches too quickly—the flush on her chest is birthing a sheen of sweat as she tries to last, and her hands grip stone turning warm under her palms.

But Cara ceases suddenly, and Kahlan exhales in both relief and disappointment. She opens her eyes, looking down and under her, and the shadows there are morphing: Cara kneels behind her, and then Kahlan sees hands rise to her sex; feels thumbs parting her folds, spreading her open; sees Cara’s jaw and chin press to her pubic hair; and _then_ , then, she feels Cara’s tongue on her sex, _in_ her sex, and she groans, pleasure rippling up her spine; she can’t help but rock her hips a little against Cara’s mouth.

To tongue her clit would require contortion, so Cara’s fingers come to rub instead, and Kahlan groans again, her breath quick; she pants as her arousal is built even further and sharpened in a way that only Cara can do. “Maybe,” Cara says, and her lips, full and red and wet, curl into a smile between Kahlan’s legs. “Maybe I missed the taste of your sex, too. A little.”

It was as if she’d forgotten her heartfelt words a moment earlier. Once again, Kahlan’s mind is torn from the thought of them as Cara’s tongue dominates her senses. It’s nothing short of a wonder, what she can make Kahlan feel, and Kahlan thinks she’s the luckiest woman in the New World to have Cara as a lover. A thought reinforced when Cara’s hand grips her ass, and her thumb pushes against the tight entrance there. Kahlan moans approval, a far cry from her very first reaction, and Cara hums into her sex.

Kahlan’s close (for how could she not be?), and Cara is relentless, lapping Kahlan’s come from her sex, sinking her tongue inside, rubbing _just_ the right way at her clit, and her thumb knuckle-deep in Kahlan’s ass gives her something to clench. And she does when she comes again, a slower and richer release. Cara’s name is trapped on the tip of her own tongue before it leaves in a strained whisper; a moan follows as her contractions slow and pleasure ebbs. Cara licks strong into her sex, one last lingering taste of her that makes Kahlan shiver, then separates herself, and stands.

Kahlan hates this part.

She stands as well, her shift’s hem dropping to her knees, and, at Cara’s perpetual wish, she doesn’t turn around. Instead, she gazes out at the unchanging night sky, and brings the word to her tongue.

“Please.”

Cara has only just stepped away, but silence is thick as she pauses. “Please what?”

“Let me. Please let me.”

Cara exhales, but doesn’t reply.

Kahlan bows her head. “I want to kiss you, Cara. I want to feel your embrace, look into your eyes, taste your lips. I missed you.”

“This is all we can be,” Cara says vehemently. “I am lost, but as long as you don’t touch me enough of your honor remains. This is a lie, Kahlan, to be lived in shadow. You know that.”

“My honor,” Kahlan whispers to the night, “is a lie. I leave to return to my husband’s bed. Even absent your scent on my fingers or your taste on my tongue, I will still lay beside him and wish for you to be there. That is a betrayal as deep as any!”

Cara is silent still.

“Please. Let me kiss you. Now and always. I would have us be true with each other if we can’t be so with anyone else.”

She waits, and when no reply comes, not a word or footsteps in parting, action builds in her mind and coils her muscles.

Kahlan whirls all at once, and braces herself—the last time she broke Cara’s rule, looking on her face in the grip of passion, the Mord-Sith struck her across the cheek and left her with a bruise to explain to her husband.

She is unprepared for this sight: Cara standing forlorn in a shaft of moonlight, hands fisted at her sides and tears glittering in her eyes, twin trails of wetness on her cheeks. Kahlan’s brow furrows in sorrow, and she approaches, her own gaze daring Cara to strike out, or even push her away.

Cara doesn’t.

Kahlan wraps arms around her, and Cara looses a choking sob as she returns her embrace, clinging tightly to Kahlan, cheek pressed to her’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” Kahlan whispers, and Cara only holds on tighter.

“I can’t control this,” she says, her voice scratchy. “This _feeling_ …all my training is useless. Either it’s too strong, or I’m too weak.”

“You know I couldn’t confess you if I tried. That’s how strong it is, Cara.”

Cara pulls away enough for Kahlan to see her eyes, liquid green. “Kiss me,” Cara whispers.

And Kahlan does. The simple press of lips carries such a heavy weight of emotion that her own eyes grow hot. Even so, the wild passion that Cara stirs in her is all too present. Her lips part, Cara opens her mouth, and Kahlan tastes her tongue. Heads tilt, hands clutch shoulders and necks, and their kiss is drawn out until Kahlan feels like she might burst—she feels so much for Cara her heart can’t possibly hold it all. For Kahlan, this from Cara means more to her than countless couplings ever could.

“We could stop,” Kahlan finds herself saying, when they’re panting for breath against each other, eyes searching, Kahlan’s hand cupping Cara’s cheek, thumb stroking her skin. “If it hurts you, we could stop.”

Cara shakes her head, leaning into Kahlan’s palm. “I would rather die.”

“So we’ll be this, now,” Kahlan offers, looking into Cara’s eyes. “And I’ll have you,” she adds. “Don’t try to stop me.”

“I’m no longer able,” Cara confesses. “But not tonight. If someone…”

Kahlan sighs. Why do Mord-Sith leathers have to be so _complicated_ , and slow to dress? “Soon,” she vows. “Tomorrow.”

Cara ventures a smirk. “So eager. I’m touched. But my time is not my own here; you know I command his armies. Tomorrow night I have a meeting with my generals and it will probably last late into the night. They are all fools. He should let me break them down to a man. Things would run so much more smoothly.”

Kahlan didn’t hear the last bit whatsoever, and so Cara escapes a scolding. “The next night,” she tries, and Cara grins. “My fingers ache to touch you,” she adds. “My skin…it burns with the need to be pressed to yours, wholly. Cara, I need your taste on my tongue. I’ve needed it for so long. I can’t wait much longer.”

“The next night, then,” Cara agrees quickly, and Kahlan smiles. The blonde leans in, her voice heavy in Kahlan’s ear. “I trust you can find us a room with a lock, and maybe a bed, in some ill-used corner of this massive place.”

“I’ll think of nothing else,” Kahlan admits. A fresh breeze sends the sheets rustling and billowing behind Cara. She wipes at the dried tears on her tanned face. “Cara, I…”

Kahlan looks down. Aching, gnawing guilt has been her most constant companion of all since this began, and it’s always eager to return after it’s momentarily chased away. Kahlan is his life, as he tells her often enough, and a sudden realization that he’s been sharing her might well be the end of him as anyone knows it—to be replaced by a man possessed of rage and sorrow. Cara waits, lips tight.

“I’m his wife, and he always says you’re his closest friend,” Kahlan says, very quietly. “How can we do this to him?”

“Not every lover’s story is written in the stars and worthy of fairytales. Some of them hurt worse than any Agiel ever could.”

Kahlan’s brow furrows. “Who taught you that?”

The corner of Cara’s mouth lifts; a broken smile. “You.”

**Author's Note:**

> Uhh, I blame any weirdly spoken dialogue on my rewatch of Spartacus.


End file.
